Quotes About Power

Edwin smiled at her, that spreading, lard-melt smile of a king roping his subject, harnessing her to his purpose.

They would write songs of what followed: the horses dancing; the spears flickering like swords, faster than the eye could see; Llanza's perfect seat; Peretur's grace, lithe as a cat; the sweat running down their mounts' flanks. The crack of Llanza's spear as it split.

Was it her true nature to take from others her own power?

Priest or not, I will have you whipped if you try to leave. Who's to stop me, who in all the world? Only the king, and he gives me what I ask. So who is to stop me? No one." "Then I tell you truly you must learn to stop yourself.

Saying what made people in power think well of you was as much a habit for Breguswith as showing her curves was for Gwladus.

That was how kings were. If you were of no use, you didn't exist.

He held her gaze this time, though it made him sweat, and this time it was she who looked away.

If she had just asked! But no. She pushes me into a corner where there's no choice." "It's what women do: weave the web, pull the strings, herd into the corner. It's their only power. Unless they're seers.

Beside her, Edwin stirred. Rædwald the overking was dead and under the dirt. Now Edwin was overking. Hild could feel him swelling like bread.

Hild unpinned her sleeves to show arms tan and tight as a stripling's wore a light cloak in royal blue flung back from her shoulder gesith-style, and tucked her hair behind her ears, to remind them of fighting man with greased-back hair

She'd be best off here with the princess with the slaughter seax.

Gwladus wanted to throw ale in the proud little face. But the princess would kill her, dead as a suckling pig.

The killer child was her mistress. For now.

She understood why a king often threatened violence. It felt good, and it worked.

He could send his words trilling into the roof corners or scuttling through floor rushes.

Woden's beard, it was her they were after. The maid.

She waited patiently, which made him nervous. Royalty were rarely patient unless they were toying with you.

He must find out what the witch woman, the child's mother, was up to with Osric, he of the kingly ambition. He'd heard talk. And this child would soon be living in very dangerous times indeed.

She felt taller than an oak, taller than an elm. They would sing songs of the king's seer, the queen of wyrd.

To hear you talk is like hearing him talk when he first become king.

A man was lord of his own hall, king or no.

She would have to remember that those who weren't used to her, or who hadn't been around her for a while, saw the legend first: twice uncanny. Wielder of wyrd, dealer of death, the king's seer.

This is your wyrd," Hild said. "You'll be a queen. You'll have children.

For some reason it wasn't as hard to have her touch me, now that she knew my name. Her fingers were strong and brisk. I wondered who she went home to, whether she washed their hair for them in the shower or bath, if she knew how easy it would be to hurt me across the larynx with a shampoo bottle and watch me choke to death. I almost sat up.